Mine
by Alicamel
Summary: Wolverine and Marie. Lust, pain, terror, death. Knowing someone better than you know yourself. Wanting what you’ve got, but loving what you haven’t.
1. Instincts

1 Mine  
  
  
  
2 SUMMARY: Wolverine and Marie. Lust, pain, terror, death. Knowing someone better than you know yourself. Wanting what you've got, but loving what you haven't.  
  
  
  
3 Instincts  
  
  
  
They could never understand, and she could never explain why. Why she slipped out and crept to some seedy bar, why she went with the men to motels, to the back of trucks, to the filthy alley outside, leaving her gloves on her desk, kissing them oh-so-gently, bare lips to bare lips, her fingers trailing lightly over their skin as they writhed in orgasmic terror beneath her.  
  
It was instinct for her, though she knew the others could never understand. She needed what they gave her, personal memories and private emotions, that rush of power that was like nothing else.  
  
  
  
  
  
He had a picture of her, given to him just before he left. She was smiling, the white streaks of hair trailing over her skin. He followed them with his fingers, noticing how one of the strands curled just so beneath her chin.  
  
His Marie. His to protect, to care for, to carry a photo of in his battered, constantly empty wallet.  
  
He looked at it every day as he drove around in what seemed like endless circles. He wanted to go home, but he wanted to go back to her whole, with answers, with some kind of inner peace.  
  
  
  
  
  
He sent her a postcard from every town, but didn't know what to write. Often, he wrote nothing, usually it was a simple greeting.  
  
'Marie. Miss You. Logan.'  
  
Generic greetings. They should print them on the postcards for people like him, leaving gaps for the names and a choice of phrases.  
  
'Hello Marie. Wish You Were Here. Logan.'  
  
He was sincere when he wrote them, but hated to re-read them. They sounded false, like this was some duty he had to fulfil rather than a ritual he longed for more than a warm bed or a beer.  
  
He missed her.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
She wrote him letters, so many letters, but had nowhere to send them. Letters on the notepaper great-aunts always sent you for Christmas, that was used for thank-you letters and then forgotten. Letters on pages torn from school books, scribbled hastily while the teacher wasn't looking. Letters on the paper she bought on a on a whim, decorated with delicate, colourful butterflies.  
  
But she had nowhere to send them. No way of sending him the sixteen page letters she kept writing, about school work, and training, and how the new kid kept staring at her in Chemistry.  
  
She missed him.  
  
  
  
  
  
He sent her hundreds of postcards. Sometimes they were of monuments; Golden Gate Bridge, the Rocky Mountains, The Largest Carousel in the World. Sometimes they were of some unknown town, often they were the postcards you bought in small towns; silly jokes and phrases, photos of exotic animals.  
  
His letters were sparse, only a few words long. She saved them after the morning post, even though, at first anyway, Jubilee and Kitty asked about them all day. She saved them until night-time, reading in the dark with her penlight, savouring each word, and breaking down each time she read them.  
  
  
  
  
  
She still had him inside her, in every sense of the word. She heard his voice, saw flashes of the memories he was searching so desperately for. She felt the animal inside him, tearing at her throat, dying to be let out.  
  
She dreamed of him nightly, so mixed up with David, and Magneto and the others, that she woke up not know where or who she was.  
  
She had stopped writing letters, stopped reading the postcards. She still crept out each night, but never to bars. Standing on street corners, shivering in the cold wind.  
  
She was shivering inside.  
  
  
  
  
  
Embarrassment.  
  
No, humiliation.  
  
She thought of the unread postcard received yesterday morning.  
  
She thought of the essay she had to write for History.  
  
She thought of the dream she'd had last night, that hadn't been hers really, but Edward's, Eddie to his friends, currently recovering in hospital.  
  
Mortification. She thought she would die. Driving home from the police station in Scott Summers' car, with the Professor and Scott, endless questions to answer come the morning. She thought she would die. Barely a taste of Eddie, barely an inkling of his life inside her.  
  
She was dying, shrivelling up and dying.  
  
  
  
  
  
It was psychosomatic.  
  
She was throwing up and shaking and dying and it was all in her head.  
  
'Not 'all in your head.' Influenced by your emotional and cognitive state.'  
  
Yeah, well, fuck you Jean. What you mean is, 'it's all in your head.' That I'm a criminal, murderer, that I don't need them, when I do.  
  
'Like an addiction withdrawal.' Scott tells Xavier when he visits my private room. 'All the same symptoms,' he tells him knowingly, while perfect Jean agrees with a simpering smile.  
  
Saying psychosomatic, when they really mean psycho.  
  
I wonder if Logan's written to me.  
  
  
  
  
  
He thought of her as he drove home, feeing further from the truth than he had ever been. Thought of brown hair and white streaks, the feeling of her draining his life to heal around the wounds he inflicted on her, thought of that smile and that laugh and those tears.  
  
His Marie, his to protect, to care for, to return home to when he felt lost and alone and hopeless. He'd never claimed her, but he felt it in his bones.  
  
Driving home, no closer to his past, and no longer caring.  
  
His Marie, perfect, and innocent and his.  
  
  
  
  
  
I wish Logan was here. He'd understand, what with the animal always tearing inside him. I saw it when I first watched him fight in that ring, I felt it when I touched him, my bare hand on his cheek, his animal growl, almost drowned out by the scream of the animal inside him.  
  
He's taking too long, even though I don't know he's coming here at all. I can just feel it, it's in my bones. He's coming to find me.  
  
Oh, Logan, my Logan. My protector, my saviour, my ride out of here. Where the hell are you? 


	2. Just A Little Bit in Love With It

1.1 Just A Little Bit In Love With It  
  
  
  
He thought I'd never find out. Thought that even though I knew his mind better than my own, I would never know. Thought he could keep it from me, when there are no secrets between us, no secrets he can keep from me.  
  
I tell him everything. I can choose not to. He has no choice, and yet keeps this from me. I should kill him for it. I could. I feel it every time, that distant taste of death, the shadowy figure looming over him, before I let him sink to the bed into a sleep so deep he won't wake for days.  
  
It's an arrangement. It works. He's allowed to let the animal out, to fight, to feel blood slide between his fingers, sticky and red and mine. I take from him to heal the wounds, like we did that first night I was in his bed. His claws through my chest, his claws inside my flesh, his mind inside my head, him, in me, body and claws and mind.  
  
He's mine, and always will be.  
  
She can't have him, even though she doesn't want him.  
  
He can't want her, though I know he does.  
  
He is mine.  
  
  
  
  
  
She's my Marie, and everyone knows it.  
  
The admirers she'd gained where lost just as swiftly within days of my return. There were rumours, as there always are, and disproving voices, as there always are, but we were so glad to see each other, it faded to nothingness.  
  
I tried to give her the photograph back, but she told me to keep it. She tried to give my dog tags back, but I told her to keep them.  
  
I thought we no longer needed the thread back to each other they had given us, but I find myself staring at the old photograph more and more.  
  
I don't analyse that too much.  
  
But she's my Marie, though she's changed. Of course she has, I tell myself. She's older. Almost eighteen. Did you expect her to remain fifteen forever? And in a curious way I am hers. She contains everything that it me, thoughts and desires, memories even I cannot remember.  
  
She knows that too of course, but we pretend she doesn't, because otherwise it would all fall apart.  
  
Ignore the fact that it's falling apart anyway, because everything it is cannot be maintained, lust and pain and terror and death.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
"Hi Logan."  
  
"Hi Jean. How's Scott?" He kept his eyes guarded as he began to empty his lunch onto the table.  
  
"He's fine. Thank you. How's Marie?"  
  
"Fine, thanks."  
  
"Good."  
  
Logan stared wistfully at her, then, suddenly aware of it. "How are you Jean?"  
  
She kept eating, the moments silence stretching out beyond them.  
  
"Logan, I think we should talk."  
  
"It's just a question." He mumbled.  
  
"You're with Marie. I'm with Scott. And I'm sorry, I think you feel something I don't return . . ." A hand on his, so casually done. "I'm sorry. Can we still be friends?"  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
"I hate it when they say that."  
  
"Say what?"  
  
"'Lets be friends.'" Marie looked at him, challenging him.  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"You love her." Not a question.  
  
"Marie. . ."  
  
"Not an answer. You love her?" A question.  
  
"Yes." An answer.  
  
"Do you love me?"  
  
"No."  
  
"Good. I don't love you."  
  
"No. Good."  
  
"Can I stay here tonight anyway?" He heard something he hadn't heard since she was fifteen. A slight tremor in her voice.  
  
"Of course you can." He reached for her gloved hands.  
  
"I don't want to. . . "  
  
"No."  
  
"I don't love you."  
  
"I don't love you either."  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
They could never understand why. Why I slip out every night and stand on street corners. I'm not trying to pick guys up, it's just a routine. And then they drive by, and it's too tempting and instinct takes over.  
  
Body count's rising. Scott and Jean keeping staring at me. The Professor and I had a little talk.  
  
I'm heading for jail, or worse, he said. I told him I knew that. Death is looming over my shoulder but she's not looking at my victim anymore. She's mine, my saviour, ticket out of here. So where the hell is she? 


End file.
